Crossed Wires
by jzhanfan
Summary: This is a missing moment story from the trip to Bespin, that didn't really fit in my larger story about this time period. H/L. Complete
1. Leia

_Author's Note:_

_A while ago I was trying to shoehorn these scenes into my longer Bespin story, "Three Long Weeks", where some of you may have already seen a heavily edited version of it. __This version stands alone and is based on text I found in my archives, from a far earlier version, before I started monkeying with it. _

**Crossed Wires**

_**During the trip to Bespin**_

Sitting alone in the dark cockpit of the Millenium Falcon, Leia Organa stared out the transparisteel viewport at the stars crawling slowly past... far too slowly for her taste.

Leia was tired of going nowhere. Literally and figuratively.

She'd lost count of how many hours she'd been sitting in this stupid cockpit, staring out at the same stars that never changed.

Had it only been two days since they'd left Hoth? It seemed more like two weeks that they'd been running, bouncing from one disaster to the next, making it up as they went along.

No. Unless the Falcon's trip chrono wasn't working – which was, of course, a distinct possibility - they had logged barely fifty hours of flight time. The navi-puter estimated just under three weeks stretching out ahead of them before they'd make Bespin.

Gods. How was she going to survive another twenty days - maybe more - cooped up with the Falcon's captain? She had the disconcerting feeling that they'd crossed some line, somewhere, when she hadn't been paying attention.

Something had certainly changed in their relationship in those fifty hours. He was still the same man who'd been alternately attracting and infuriating her for three years. But now... he kept invading her mind at the oddest times. And somehow, it seemed harder to stay angry with him now that it had been just a few days ago.

Just now, for instance, she was remembering the look in his eyes when he'd left her alone in the cockpit not long ago. He'd been heading down to the lower level of the ship to assist Chewie with repairs and he'd turned, in the hatchway, to look back at her, in the same instant that she'd turned in his chair to look back at him. The expression she'd caught on his face was a very different one than he usually wore. There was longing, and sadness, and something else she couldn't identify. For a moment she'd thought he was about to say something, and for a moment she'd wanted to ask him to stay. But then the moment was gone and so was he.

What was wrong with her? She'd been content. All right, maybe not content. But... comfortable. She'd been comfortable, for the first time since Alderaan, having a handful of friends and companions with whom she could be herself. She had people who knew her – Leia Organa - and not as a figurehead, a legend. People who knew the truth, and liked her anyway.

Sometimes Solo exasperated her, but he'd come to be one of the ones she trusted. One she could call friend. Most of the time, at least.

But down in the circuitry bay, he'd stopped being a friend and turned into something else entirely: A handsome man who seemed genuinely interested in her. Despite their years of bickering and tossing barbs at one another, it hadn't occurred to her that the game they'd been playing was anything but a game. He was older than she by at least ten years, and even if she had been looking for romance – which she wasn't, who had time for that in the middle of war? - she certainly wouldn't have considered him a prospect.

True, for three years she'd been hearing a near-constant stream of verbal innuendo from him, but she'd assumed he'd been mocking her, that he did it because it annoyed her.

All those years, she'd never imagined that he saw her as anything but an uptight and spoiled comrade, It hadn't occurred to her that any of his teasing sexual remarks had been _**serious**_**... **until the moment when his mouth had found hers, and the universe had spun out of her control. .

In that unexpected moment, he'd raised the stakes on her, and for the first time, she understood that she might well have more to lose in this sabaac pot than he did.

His kiss had awakened something inside her she hadn't been willing to admit to herself was even there. She heard his words in her head, "You like me because I'm a scoundrel. You haven't had enough scoundrels in your life." It was true. He was utterly unlike any other man she'd ever known. And that was what made him so appealing.

Thinking about it was giving her a headache. Would her life never be simple?


	2. Han

As Leia's thoughts drifted in his direction yet again. Captain Solo strode down the corridor leading to the cockpit and spoke into his commlink "All right, I'm on my way. You sure we're ready to give this a try, Chewie?" Still down in the bowels of the ship, the Wookie barked an answer over the comm. Grunting his disapproval, the Captain stuffed the comm into his pocket and palmed open the hatch to the cockpit.

The oversize copilot's chair hid Leia s small figure completely. Consequently, Han didn't realize she was in the cockpit until she spun the chair around at the sound of his footsteps on the deck.

"Han!"

"Who were you expecting?" he quipped, mildly. "I'd have called if I knew you were still up here, Princess. You've been awfully quiet."

"Just thinking", she said, distantly.

"Good place for it", he remarked, walking toward the console and reaching above her head for an access panel, deliberately invading her space. She promptly tried to swivel her seat to put some distance between them, but it was clearly a token gesture. He was close enough to feel the heat that had risen to her cheeks and to see that her eyes held none of the cold rejection he had come to expect.

Something resembling a smile was twitching at the corner of her lips and he abruptly shifted gears. _She likes nice men, huh? I can be nice._ "You know, I do some of my best thinking in this chair." He gestured with his chin at the pilot's seat. "That view just helps clear your head sometimes."

She stopped trying to turn the chair and studied him curiously. "I wouldn't have thought you were the type to enjoy the view."

Glancing down at her, he pulled another nest of wires from the panel. "Was that supposed to be an insult, or a compliment?"

"Neither", she said, quickly, "I just meant it's hard to picture you sitting here looking out at the stars. I can't see you sitting still that long."

"Well, it's not _**all**_ dodging laser fire and rescuing princesses in distress. I got slow days, now and then. I sit up here and look at the stars." His fingers followed a yellow wire through the tangled mess and he gave a careful tug, hoping to find where the other end emerged. Instead, a connector broke free over his head and most of the circuitry in the panel came tumbling down on them both.

"Goodness, Captain," she laughed, picking wire strands from her hair and adding them to the pile he was juggling. "Does all the wiring in this ship look like this?"

There she went, insulting his ship again. "No, it doesn't." He pressed the intercom button. "Chewie," he called, "The one you want is the green, right?"

The Wookiee growled an affirmative and Han deftly reached behind him to pull a set of wire cutters from his rear pocket. He selected a green wire from the tangle and snipped it. Immediately, sparks erupted from the circuitry and the Captain stumbled backwards, cursing loudly. Leia put up her hands just in time, and narrowly avoided a collision with his backside.

The intercom crackled with an apologetic howl from Chewbacca, but Han was having none of it. "What the _hell_ are you doing, Chewie? Trying to get me electrocuted? Next time you cut the juice _before_ you tell me which wire to snip, huh?"

All at once, he realized that Leia still had her hands on his waist, and that he was enjoying it immensely. Flashing a wicked grin in her direction, he teased, "Nice save, Your Highness." Her cheeks turned pink and she let go of him, clearly embarrassed to find herself so close to his posterior.

For the second time in two minutes, he decided not to push his luck, dropping into the pilot's chair without another word. "All right," he called into the intercom, "Enough excuses, Chewie, is the juice off now? All right, let's see if it worked."

She half-pushed herself out of Chewie's seat. "Do you need me to move?"

"No, no, you're good. Just switch the autopilot over to me, will you?" When she didn't react, he realized she was trying to decipher the unorthodox arrangement of displays on the Wookiee's board and he gestured impatiently at the correct panel. "There."

Still flipping switches and watching gauges, he continued - all business, now - "All right, I m gonna switch on the main generator and bring the systems up one a time. Chewie, watch the power demand on the main and stop me if she goes past sixty." The Wookiee growled his agreement and Han began keying the transfer sequence. "Shields over to main. Weapons over to main. How we doin', Chewie?"

["All green. Thirty-five on main. Sixteen on number one. Twenty-five on number two."]

"All right, here goes nothin'."

["You sure you don't want me up there?"]

Han glanced over at the princess. "No, I'm good. Leia's up here, she can do it."

She pointed at her chest. "Me?" she mouthed, in surprise.

"Yeah, you. I need you to do something for me. The autopilot has to be offline for me to switch over the power. When I take it offline, I need you to hold us on course at two-one-six" - he pointed at the reading on the console in front of her that read two-one-six - "till I turn it back over to the computer."

Seeing the confusion in her eyes, he added, "It'll just be a few seconds, you'll be fine."

"You're the captain." _That's right. And don't you forget it, sweetheart, _he thought, as she reached for the oversized yoke on the Wookiee's console. He rather liked it when she followed orders. It didn't happen all that often.

Eyes on the display to his left, Han flipped a switch and then slowly drew back a lever. "All right, you've got the helm, your Royalness." The engines' rhythm changed at once and the nose of the cockpit began to drift downward, very slowly.

Hesitantly, Leia pulled backward on the oversized yoke. The freighter wobbled on her main axis and the universe abruptly tilted, hard, to port. Han's stomach dropped into his boots and the Princess caught her breath, audibly. A howl of protest came from the intercom as the Wookiee was thrown against the bulkhead below. She pulled harder on the yoke, still getting little, if any, response from the ship.

Understanding at once, Han stretched out a hand and gently nudged a lever on her side of the console. "Sorry," he said, without turning his head. "She's still expecting a Wookie's touch." The _Falcon's _drift changed direction as the ship finally responded to Leia's attempts at steering. "Better?"

"Better," she said, in a low voice.

"Don't worry, you're fine," he said, easily. "There's nothing out here to hit." His eyes never left the display, but his hand moved from the console and rested, very briefly, on her arm. "Just a bit more starboard to straighten us out. Keep her level." The princess bit her lip and carefully brought the port side of the ship back up, till she was level on her axis again. "There you go. Atta girl." She lifted her chin and sat straighter in Chewie's chair.

Han reached for the power source control and said, into the intercom, "Now, Chewie!" With a rush, the roar of the engines changed again. Watching the gauges closely, Han murmured "Steady, steady, old girl. Come on. Come on... hold it... hold it... yes!" he said at last, "Looks good, Chewie. I'm bringing the autopilot back up. Ready, Leia?"

She nodded. "Ready, Captain."

"On three. One, two," he finished keying the program and hit the control button "Three! And you're clear." Standing, he reached again for the nest of wiring and found the one he'd clipped, pulled a plug from his pocket and encased the loose end. Then he shoved the rest of the circuitry awkwardly back into the compartment. The panel wouldn't close and he smacked at it with his forearm until it closed far enough that the tangle of wires stayed put.

Leia let go of the yoke and sank back into the oversized chair, watching him, and he saw her fingers trembling. She'd been gripping the console tighter than he'd realized. He sat back down in his chair, and then reached over, cautiously, to rub her limp fingers. "You all right?"

"Yeah," she said, quietly, blowing out her breath slowly.

He grinned crookedly. "Sure?"

She didn't answer. Instead, she asked, very carefully, "You didn't think it was going to work, did you?"

_Damn. _His frown deepened. He hadn't known she was up here at all, or he might have postponed the test, or sent Chewie up. Deciding to let her help, he still hadn't meant for her to see his worry. But she was more attuned to him than he'd realized. And somehow he knew better than to lie to her.

Dropping her hand, he played for time. "What do you mean?"

"You could have programmed this from the main computer and Chewie could have been up here. Instead you're here yourself. Why?"

He didn't meet her eyes, but he offered a reluctant explanation. "Main power grid's been acting up some. We've been working on it, but I wasn't sure we'd gotten it stable enough yet to handle another circuit. If the grid shorted out at the wrong moment, not only would it have not worked, we might have lost the autopilot." He gave a heavy sigh. "I can't afford to lose any more systems right now."

"And what were you doing with that rat's nest?" She gestured at the console panel overhead.

"Cutting the autopilot out of the circuit. That panel controls the most of the consoles and the autopilot would have fried if it drew power from both circuits." He waited, knowing what her next question would be.

"That was the autopilot? A bare wire you just snipped? It's not shielded?"

"No, it's not. If it was shielded I couldn't switch it to a new panel in a hurry. Most of the systems up here have redundant wiring, so we can pick and choose if we lose one of the grids. But that means we have to keep track of the power draw on each panel. That's what this display does." He pointed to his left. "Downstairs I can see more systems, but up here I can reallocate the power on the fly."

"So you brought the main grid up and nothing was wired into it?" she pressed.

"Not till I was sure it was safe. The navi'puter is a big drain, it usually runs on separate power all together. Doesn't usually tap into auxiliary or the main grid at all."

"Except today."

"Yeah," he sighed. "Except today. We lost the third grid in the asteroid field. Chewie rerouted it. We'd have been sunk without navigation." She nodded, knowing he was right. "But the auxiliary woulda drained before we got to Bespin if we left the navi'puter plugged in to it the whole way." He paused, thinking, and decided to explain a little more. "I like startin' with a clear grid. If I went off the main grid in the first place, I had a good reason. So I don't ever bring everything back online at once. We do 'em one at a time. Manually."

"In case something's still broke, you can isolate it?"

"Exactly." He grinned, pleased that she'd understood, and chose to ignore her implication that the ship was full of broken parts.

"A method to the madness, eh?"

His grin got wider. "Sometimes I amaze myself."

"Sometimes you amaze me," she laughed.

At this, his expression grew serious. "I like the sound of that." And before she could protest, he leaned over, took her face in his hands, and kissed her, long and slow and searching.


	3. Sparks

They were both breathless when they finally drew apart, and when at last Leia trusted her voice, she asked, softly, "What are we doing, Han?"

"I don't know, Leia," he replied, in a low whisper that brushed her cheek with its warmth. Then he turned her face back to his and kissed her again, harder this time, his hand slipping to the back of her head to hold her still beneath his mouth.

For an endless moment, she let herself savor the sweet taste of him, but when his circling tongue sent a shiver of longing straight to her toes, she caught her breath and pulled away immediately. "Don't," she closed her eyes, struggling to keep her voice steady. "Please don't. This isn't helping."

"Leia," he said, in a low voice, catching her hand as she turned away from him. "After things are settled with Jabba... If I came back... would you... would we..." He didn't know how to finish the question, because he didn't know what he wanted. "Would it matter, to you?" he asked, finally.

She went very still and stared down, silently, at his hand, holding hers. "It might. I don't know, Han," she said, simply, unable to meet his eyes. "I don't know, either."

He dropped her hand and sat back in his chair, surprised at her honesty. Shaking his head slowly, he rose from his chair. "I guess we're even, then, Princess. Let me know if you figure it out." He leaned down and kissed the top of her head, and turned on his heel and left the cockpit.

She stared after him, more confused than ever, and then spun the Wookiee's chair around, sighing, to gaze out at the stars once again, wondering if there were any answers out there to be found.

It was some time before Han returned to the cockpit, and when he did, the princess was gone. When he finally decided to go looking for her, he didn't have to go far. He found her in the galley, standing beside the counter nibbling a cocoa bar. She looked up, guiltily, at the sound of his footsteps, and his eyes widened as he saw what she was eating. "Those are Chewie's favorite. That better not be the last one."

She looked, if possible, even more chagrined. "Oh, no! It was. I was just so hungry, I had to eat something."

He sat down across from her at the counter and grinned. "He's gonna kill you."

Without hesitating, she broke off half the bar and shoved it into his laughing mouth. "He's going to kill _us_," she corrected.

He sputtered, indignantly, around the food in his mouth, and she burst into giggles. And then they heard Chewie coming down the corridor, calling out for Han.

Without a word, Leia grabbed the wrappers and shoved them hastily into the disposal chute behind her. She turned to find Han standing right in front of her. Eyes on the corridor, he backed her against the bulkhead and put an arm around her, whispering quickly, "Food, he'll interrupt. This, he won't."

And then his mouth was on hers again, warm and soft and inviting this time. She was too surprised to resist. Hands resting on her hips, he deepened the kiss, slowly drawing her closer, into the curve of his legs. She felt the heat and the weight of him against her, and she took a step sideways, breaking the kiss and trying to slide out from under his arms.

"Han, please..." she breathed, "I thought..."

"Shhh..." His breath was warm against her ear. "Don't think, sweetheart." She shook her head, uncertainly, and he pressed his cheek against hers. "Shhh..." he repeated, coaxing her lips apart with his tongue. "For once in your life, Leia, just... don't think."

He slipped his hand up to the nape of her neck, his fingers weaving into the coil of braids and preventing her from turning her head away. His tongue traced the shape of her lips, and she closed her eyes, fascinated by the sensation.

He felt the tension go out of her shoulders and his hands steered her, a step at a time, until her back was against the bulkhead and she had nowhere left to go.

By now, though, she no longer wanted to retreat. Her fingers twisted unconsciously in his shirt front, clutching at him desperately for support, as her knees trembled beneath her. He tasted like chocolate, and instead of pulling away, as she knew she should, she found herself licking deeper into his mouth, thinking only how lovely it felt to be held like this.

Chewie's annoyed growl interrupted their embrace. ["So this is where you disappeared to?"]

Han disengaged and turned to his copilot with only slightly exaggerated indignation. "Don't you know how to use a comm?"

Growling again, the Wookie reached down and slid Han's comm unit from his shirt pocket and turned it so he could see that it was turned off. Han looked sheepish and Leia chuckled. "He's got you there, hot shot."

Han glanced over at her and said, evasively, "I was busy, Chewie." She averted her eyes, suddenly embarrassed at this insinuation, as the Wookiee looked from her flushed cheeks to his friend's disheveled shirt.

["I can see that."] Chewie growled curiously and sniffed the air. ["I told you she smelled interested."]

It was Han's turn to look embarrassed. "Yeah, well... maybe." Leia raised a questioning eyebrow and Han shook his head, not translating for her. "Look, meet me in the cockpit, Chewie, I'll be right up, ok? Give us a minute here."

The Wookiee barked with laughter and slapped Han's shoulder as he left. ["It better be just a minute, my friend. I thought you were going to keep your hands to yourself?"]

"Thought I told you to stay out of it?" Han fired back, turning to Leia. "I'm sorry about that," he began, hesitantly, not sure how much she'd caught of the conversation. If she hadn't understood, he wasn't about to share.

"Was that an 'I told you so' that I heard in there?"

_Kriff. "_Sort of", he hedged, wincing.

Her voice rose. "Just what have you two been talking about?"

"We haven't. I mean, I haven't. That is... Chewie's... well, let's just say he's in favor of us getting along better."

Abruptly she understood and began to laugh. "Then I guess I should thank him."

"Hey, he didn't notice you ate his chocolate, did he?"

Her eyes twinkled and he knew he'd been forgiven. "No, he didn't, did he?"

"You're welcome," he teased.

Accepting the dig, she came up on tiptoe to kiss his stubbled jaw quickly. "Thank you, Captain."

"For covering for you, or for the kiss?" he asked, touching his cheek, softly, as if he could still feel the imprint of her lips.

"For everything." She gazed speculatively at him. "You know, when you put your mind to it, you're a very nice man, Captain."

On his way out the door, he whirled and pointed a finger at her, grinning crookedly. "Don't you forget it, sweetheart."


End file.
